Nico and Bianca
by shamhlu
Summary: Nico has to learn to cope with Bianca's death, but it will take a lot to get over her, along the way, truths will be learned, and Nico will never be the same. Not good at summarising things, but still. This is a sort of continuation of Bianca's trip down the Lethe, so if you want to give that a read, please, be do, but you don't need to.


**A/N: Really quickly, before you start, listen to the song 'Soldatino (Nico's lullaby)' it's the song I'm using as a lullaby for this, and it is a really lovely song. Please enjoy.**

 _"Ma anche per te, c'e una luce_

 _Che ad un'altra vita ti conduce…"_

Nico woke up sweating.

Something was wrong. He couldn't tell what it was, but there was just something missing. Something important that he had become so used to that he had barely noticed it was gone. A bleary glance around told him he was still in the Hades cabin at camp, so he hadn't shadow travelled to the middle of Times Square again.

His hand travelled to the side of his bed where his sword was sheathed, ready for an attack at a moment's notice. There was no one in his cabin, even in the dark, in fact especially in the dark, he could see where any would-be attacker was. He briefly felt for any recent deaths, wondering if a sudden death has set him off.

No one he knew, the knowledge that a total of twenty-seven people had died, in his general area, since he drifted off didn't faze him at this point. He had spent a good part of the last three years in the Underworld, he knew death personally and his dad was deaths boss. Some nights the feeling of the souls of the dead going quietly with Thanatos was calming, sometimes it even helped get him to sleep. Counting dead people was much simpler than counting sheep, as the children of Hypnos claimed between naps.

Regardless, he still hadn't gotten to the reason he was awake. So, he started trying to think of more reasons, Mrs O'Leary came in and slobbered him while he slept and then shadow travelled out? No, he wasn't covered in hellhound drool, and the room was still in a halfway decent state, if she had come in, it would probably look a lot more like a hellhound the size of a garbage truck came into his moderately sized room.

Another ghost was haunting camp? No, he took care of Ethel last week, poor girl was one of the first casualties on the front lines and managed to stay in the mortal realm while Hades was deciding weather or not to show up. She had been conscripted to fight for the Titans by one of the monsters, considering she was an orphan at the age of eight she was easy pickings for the monsters in the social system.

She had no idea what was going on but had been terrified into obedience by Kronos and his monsters. So, she had come to camp and attacked. It would have been funny to watch the child running up the hill to camp, sword almost as big as she was at the ready, with a squeaky cry of war if it wasn't so sad. She made a depressing figure, dressed in the barely functioning armour that had lead to her demise so early with a sword she could barely hold, soaked in the silver ichor leaking from the hole where her she had been mostly bisected by the suspension cables of the Williamsburg Bridge when Kronos and Percy fought, it was only the end of the cable that got her, so she only lost all of the organs on the right-hand side of her body. It wasn't much of a consolation, considering she died.

The girl had spent the first minute of her attack 'stabbing' several campers and 'killing' them. It took her about this long to realise that everyone wasn't even reacting much more than a flinch to her sword. It had taken her another minute to come to terms with being dead. It was then that Nico came along, and put a hand on her shoulder, gently leading her away from the other campers.

He didn't exactly know what to say, so he just lead on with the obvious: "You're dead."

She sobbed a little, and nodded, so he led her to his cabin to talk and calm her down.

"I… I don't wanna go." The girl sobbed when Nico sat her down on his bunk, the only one in the cabin. The sickly green light showed a small girl sobbing, the underworlds lanterns giving her the illusion of life, in the Hades cabin, the border between the dead and the living was blurred, his father had allowed him that, the newly founded cabin was neutral ground between life and death. Of course, that was all well and good, but it was mostly so that the other campers didn't have to look at the rotting corpses that Nico had do his share of the chores. It wasn't like the other campers didn't misuse their godly blessings from time to time, his just happened to be more… uncomfortable to look at.

Nico sat there, watching the girl sob, and listened to her pleas, he had heard them all before, all those living in the fields of Asphodel begged, but there was no release, nowhere to go. This child should have been no different, but with an actual face to put to the spirit, while she looked so alive… the son of Hades felt a twinge of sorrow, he knew the chances were, she would be in the fields of Asphodel at best, but she had no choice, it was the same with a lot of the demi-gods who were in the Titans army.

He sighed deeply, this wasn't his job, legally he was too young to have a job, but being a demi-god wasn't a choice. "I have to bring you to the Underworld. Dad won't be happy to have you roam about up here."

Nico grimaced as he came back to the present, thinking about her left a bitter taste in his mouth. He needed to stay in the present, there was something wrong, and he needed to figure out what it was.

He started pacing the dark cabin, he was exhausted, but there was something wrong, something missing. He groaned, then yawned, then groaned again. He needed to get to sleep, whatever it was, it could wait until the morning.

He laid back in bed and closed his eyes, slowly drifting off to sleep, just before he entered the realm of Morpheus, he felt that cold emptiness inside him, the same one he felt when Bianca… He drifted off, his last thoughts bringing a tinge of pain, and while he dreamt, he saw her. Singing softly to him and finally realised what he was missing.

Every night since he could remember, she used to sit on his bed and sing him and old lullaby, it was something stuck in both of their memories. He realised it must be a small remnant of their mother, the Lethe water wasn't a high dose, so they still remembered some things, a smile, a laugh… a lullaby.

When they were in the hotel, she sang it gently to him from the next bed over, when they were in Westover hall, she snuck into his room and hummed it until he slept. No matter how strict the rules were about curfew and girls in boy's dorms, she always came. The first night he went without it was the night she joined the hunt. For the next few nights he barely slept with the silence, and about half-way through her quest he woke up almost like he had now. He thought it was a nightmare, but looking back, that must have been when she died.

He eventually started to just imagine her singing it to him to get to sleep. Every night he would hear her, humming that soft melody, it must have been his imagination. He must have missed her so much his mind tried to recreate her for him as a coping mechanism, but now he must be coping better, maybe helping the dead was a good way of coping with his loss. He tried to rationalise it, make sense of the silence.

He dreamt of her stroking his hair on the buss, humming as they made their way to Westover hall, the rest of the world was blurry, the kind you get when you try to focus on a dream, not real. Bianca was the only real thing in this world, she just sat there, looking down at him, smiling softly.

The dream slowly came to a close, the faint memory it belonged to fading to black as Nico woke up. He had to have been coping better, he reasoned. Why else would she have stopped her lullaby?

Nico woke up sweating.

He struggled to sit up in the sleeping-bag he'd been provided by the camp and looked around the dark room. The camper to his left shifted in their own bag, it looked almost as old as his, but as coloured a sickly green as opposed to his own jet-black bag. When Travis had handed it to him, his first thought was it looked like a body-bag. When he voiced this to the councillor, the older boy looked at him weird before laughing. It sounded forced.

He took one more look around, trying to find the cause of his current state of consciousness, chances are it was just a prank from one of his bunkmates. He frowned. No, if it were, he would be painted bright pink, floating in the middle of the lake with something funny written on his forehead.

Poor Jacob.

He still wondered what they had actually written on his head, when Chiron fished him away from the naiads, who were yelling some things he hadn't managed to catch in Greek (what does 'διαστρεβλώ' mean anyway?), his head was immediately covered by one of the helmets the centaur had on hand. Even now, knowing that there was a real-life centaur around, it made him grin.

The Stolls had promised to lay off the pranks on him though, well, they promised Chiron, he just happened to overhear. He frowned, that hadn't been fun to listen in on. It was just another reminder that Bianca had left him. The centaur had said that he would probably be a bit 'fragile' without Bianca. His frown turned to a scowl, who needs her anyway? She could just go with her stupid hunters and leave, he didn't want her anyway.

Who needs a sister anyway? They're all girly and stupid and-and stupid girls! Who cares if she played with him when no-one else would; or stood up for him when all the other kids called him weird and tried to push him around; or that she used to sing him to sleep every night.

Her being gone definitely has nothing to do with the reason he can't sleep anymore.

He brought his knees to his chest and hugged them close. This was the first night he actually managed to get to sleep in the first place and something stupid wakes him up. If only Bianca would- No, she's gone. She left him all alone.

He stood up. He wasn't going to think about this anymore, about her. He needed to figure out what woke him up, why he felt so empty and how to fix it. There was something… weird. Something missing.

Maybe some air would help, it did last time until one of the Stolls told on him. Stupid Conor. That's what led to them having that conversation with Chiron that he overheard, that only made him feel worse.

He carefully stepped over his neighbour, awkwardly stretched to over their neighbour going until he reached the door. Quickly opening it, smirking at the fact the hinge was silent (plenty of Hermes kids sneak out, can't trip on the first hurdle).

He walked aimlessly for a bit, until he spotted the fire, its soft glow silhouetting the small mousey figure gently poking it with a stick. He was about to turn and bolt before he was spotted but was stopped by a voice.

"Come and have a seat."

There was something about her voice, it just sort of felt… warm, like a warm blanket, or a hug. She sounded so familiar, like an old friend. In fact, the tone she spoke was almost exactly like… hers. He scowled at the thought and took the time to take in this person, from where he was all he could see was her brown cloak, she hadn't even turned when she spoke.

He moved closer and took a seat, but her cloak still covered her face, only allowing a few strands of her hair to fall down.

"Hello again, Nico." She said, her smile was audible, and that emptiness he felt when he woke up began to disappear. He suddenly remembered her, sitting exactly where she had when they met a few days ago.

"Hi, uh, I don't know your name," he said bashfully, she had been so nice on his first day, and he didn't even bother to ask her name.

She turned and smiled at him, and the first thing he noticed was that her eyes were fire. When they met last time, he thought it was the fire reflecting off them, or the sun, but no. Her eyes were fire. Maybe this is what the other boys meant when they said girls were hot.

She giggled like she just heard a good joke and smiled wider at him, "I didn't tell you my name." She said. They sat there for a bit, her smile slowly growing, before Nico spoke again.

"Um, could you tell me it?"

"What?"

"Your name."

"I could, but I don't think it matters." Before he could respond, she pulled out a bag from somewhere in her cloak, "want a marshmallow?" The light of the fire revealed a plastic bag that was indeed filled with fluffy clouds. He didn't get to answer the question though, as she opened the bag and handed him a stick and a marshmallow.

She then poked a marshmallow with her own stick and held it over the fire, gesturing he do the same.

"Where did the marshmallows come from?" He asked after a moment to figure out what happened.

"Oh, I have a marshmallow pocket." She said tapping her cloak.

"Why?"

"So, I can make s'mores, of course." She pulled out a small lunchbox, and took out four biscuits, handed two to Nico, and took her marshmallow off the fire.

"Do you have a... biscuit pocket too?"

"Of course, you can't have s'mores without the cookies now could you?" With a single movement, she sandwiched the gooey mallow between her biscuits and smiled, "perfect. Try it."

Nico did, and ended up with a half the marshmallow on the ground and two halves of two broken biscuits. The girl smiled kindly and neatly swapped the two s'mores, biting down on the mess that could be only called a s'more in theory.

"Delicious." She said, "try that one."

"But this is yours?" He tried to hand it back, but she simply shook her head.

"No, I ate mine, now eat up, before it gets too cold."

He frowned, "you were different last time, you weren't so… loud?"

"I think forceful is a bit of a better word." She smiled softer this time, "sometimes you need to be a bit more forceful though. Besides, I'm not the only one acting differently, you're a lot more withdrawn, and from the looks of it, you have been acting like this since your first night here. Do you not like it at camp?"

"No, I just…" He turned to face the fire, blocking out the girl, "I haven't been sleeping well."

"No?"

"I… My sleeping bag's really not comfy."

"Ah, maybe you could ask for another, I'm sure Chiron would be happy to help. But that isn't all?"

"I… No, that's all."

He turned to look at the girl, her eyes were heart-breaking, she looked like a mix between disappointed that he lied, and sad because she knew why.

"… Bianca left me." He whispered, turning and staring straight into the fire, "I hate her, she only stayed with me because she had to, because I'm her brother and she's supposed to look after me."

"That's not true." The girl said, "your sister loved you very much, and still does, but she is a child too, she was scared and felt trapped. She thought that the hunters were the only way she could get that, and with you being taken care of at camp, she thought it would be better. That doesn't mean she doesn't love you, and it certainly doesn't mean you hate her. No."

He wasn't sure when he stopped staring into the campfire, and found himself staring into the much more beautiful fires of her eyes, but now he realised that the campfire had nothing on them. The flames burned with every emotion that he felt, the anger, and the rage and everything else he couldn't explain with words. He felt all of them as he stared her in the eye, and felt them slowly bun away to show him how he really felt.

Sad.

She was gone, and he'd never get her back.

"No, your sister loved you, she was just a kid, and like all kids, she made selfish choice."

She brought her hand to his face and whipped away the tears he wasn't even aware were there with a thumb. Then she brought him into a hug, only then did he realise the girl who couldn't have been more than eight or nine, was bigger than him.

They sat there like that for what must have been ten minutes, tears softly falling down his face as he finally let out the emotions he had bottled up for the past few days. She just hugged him as he sobbed, rubbing circles in his back. She eventually pulled back when his tears had dried up, and smiled at him.

"Your sister does love you, never forget that, okay?" He nodded, "good, now eat your s'more. It should still be at the right heat."

He realised that throughout his entire breakdown, the s'more had remained perfect, the chocolate on the outside hadn't even melted onto his fingers, and the marshmallow gave off a soft heat like it had when it was just out of the fire.

"Come on, eat up."

He did, taking a small tentative bite, his eyes brightened, and he chomped down the rest in seconds. "That was great!" He exclaimed as he finished.

"Glad you think so." She said, smiling happily at the praise. "Now, how about we have a game of this Mythomagic, hm?"

"My stuffs in the cabin, I-" He began, but the girl simply pulled a few cards from her cloak.

At his confused look she simply smiled, "you, seemed so happy when you talked about it, I wanted to see what all the fuss was about." She grinned conspiratorially, "I have to admit it's a lot of fun."

He matched her grin, and for the first time in a while he was starting to feel like himself.

After the game, she smiled at him, but her eyes were sad.

"The future will be tough, Nico di Angelo, yours especially, will be faced with many trials. One of them will be the truth. You should remember though, that you will always be loved, and that your sister will always be with you."

"What are you talking about?"

She gave a pained smile, "you'll understand soon enough, for now, I think it's time you go back to bed. Come: "She took his hand and gently dragged him along the path he took not so long ago, slowly bringing him back to the Hermes cabin. "Now, time for bed I think." She said.

He turned and looked at the door, before turning back to find that he was alone. He looked around for the girl, only now realising he still didn't know her name. He snuck back into the cabin and wormed his way back into his sleeping bag. As he slept he turned his thoughts to his sister, and her lullaby, soon he was gently humming to himself. As he finally drifted off, he thought he heard another voice, softly singing to him, Bianca's voice:

 _"Tu sei il mio soldatino_

 _La regione per cui vivo."_

Just before he fully gave himself to the realm of Morpheus, he had to wonder: Why did she sound so sad?


End file.
